Fallout: The Day After
by Ekacahya Garfiantama
Summary: 13 years after the Institute's total annihilation by nuclear and how humanity restored control of the East Coast, a new discovery sheds more light of the world's past, and then Brotherhood starts to expand overseas... The story starts with a timeline, and then followed by a tale about the discovery of the timeline, and Brotherhood attempts to expand overseas...


2026: And so, after the ALICE demonstration successful, several days after, another message spreads to the social media.  
Calling them "The VRMMO Nightmare" it was shown several footages about the "War of the Underworld" where the Japanese are being curb-stomped by the players from abroad until those foreign players were forcibly logged out after a system glitch.

Americans were told that they are tricked to sign in to a shady, viral beta of a no-holds-barred violent PVP VRMMORPG, while the rest of the Eastern Asian players were told that the Japanese were asserting dominance of The Seed[1] Network and attacking non-Japanese players who are supposedly testing a new game.

One thing that is sure that, every gamers were experiencing pain related to the "in-game" actions.

The fact is, through a whistleblower informally codenamed Helios, that a Japanese government-funded clandestine organization, RATH, is doing an experiment for a cutting-edge AI technology derived from copying newborn souls and putting them into a violent experiment.

Despite Seijuro Kikuoka, the mind behind the ALICE project and the Underworld, being pronounced KIA during the attack at Ocean Turtle, said whistleblower confirmed that Kikuoka is still alive, however, request for manhunt has been denied, as Kikuoka's overseas travel rights have been revoked due to being legally died.

Soon after...

2027: The Asian Tech Conference, decided that after: -the SAO incident which claimed over 1000 lives of innocent gamers due to the developer making it that "players who died in the game died in the real life", -the Death Gun incident which kills the players that are killed by Death Gun in the Japanese server of Gun Gale Online, and -the declassified happenings of the Underworld Project by RATH,  
Decided that, in co-operation with the Global Software Alliance, formed by American tech giants Microsoft, Google, Apple, Oracle, and in co-operation with open source foundations throughout America and the world, that the Seed-Based VRMMORPG as developed by Akihiko Kayaba, the culprit behind SAO, as a threat to humanity as a whole.

Network systems worldwide are outfitted with anti-Seed code, and basically all anti-virus programs, first and third party, identify the Seed programs as a virus and thus are blocked to transmit worldwide, if not outright deleted, ejecting users out of the Fulldive[2] gear.

However, the Seed programs are able to be operated locally within Japanese devices, as a consolation.

Traditional video gaming, one with controller, video game device, PC, or screen, has returned to the global game industry. Trade-ins sponsored by major companies such as Bethesda and Nintendo, where Nervegear and Amusphere devices are traded-in for series compilations of famous videogames such as The Elder Scrolls and Super Smash Bros, were successful.

Meanwhile, the US government officially ended it's protectorate status of Japan, leaving Japan to fend for themselves against the surrounding foreign powers.

2029: As the grip of US government in East Asia loosens, the North Korea and South Korea reunited. Despite efforts by Japanese intelligence to sabotage the unification by rallying and establishing the anti-unification "SECT" under the guise of nationalistic movements, ultimately the SECT movement, despite causing considerable damage to the Korean law enforcement through sabotage and espionage, were eliminated, and both Korea was successfully united under one flag.

2042: Robert House founded RobCo Industries, dedicated to develop robotics technology.

2052: As natural oil resources are dwindling, the Resource Wars began, where Europe and Middle East lost contact after reportedly, a nuclear exchange. The New Plague, believed to be spread by a Japanese spy, spread through all computerized devices and causing seizures as well as large material and economical damage to many computer and smart device user throughout America and the world.

In China and Korea, Japanese-made "hyperintelligent" robot servants under the Kirigaya-RECTO[3] model goes on rampage killing people, victims estimated in hundreds.

In America, aside from the New Plague, there are small numbers of (illicitly or otherwise) imported Kirigaya-RECTO models. Once they crossed the metal detector, they were dismantled violently by security and the populace.

New tech has been since outlawed, including the Internet, to prevent further spread of the plague as complete purge of any American, Korean, and Chinese from any technology with Japanese involvement is underway. Radio and letter based communication returned. Long-range networks, excluding telephony, radio, and television has since to be return to the domain of military only.

National American culture has since been almost completely restructurized, in part of cleansing American culture from harmful foreign influences. Anything more "foreign" are either banned, buried away, or dismissed by the populace. Remakes of 20th century pop and country music has seen resurgence since then.

Meanwhile The People's Republic of China is under martial law, where not only all Japanese tech was scrapped but systematic manhunt to Japanese nationals in-land has been declared. The Japanese who are not killed were reduced to lifetime involuntary labor as a way to "pay" for their "collective" crimes. New writing system were introduced to remove words and letters originating from Japan.  
RobCo was reintegrated as a joint-venture of US Robotics (a coalition of all robotic tech based companies barring Boston Dynamics, which remained to stay independent) and Global Software Alliance, losing both of their former names in process, took over in re-researching computer technology, building every code and every hardware from ground up.

At the same year, United Nations were disbanded due to growing distrust and hostility toward Japanese and non-Japanese nations, also the fact that Europe and Middle East relations is no longer salvageable.

2053: Japanese launched their first long-range attacks in history since the World War II. Missiles and unmanned drones struck China and Korea, causing indeterminable amount of destruction and casualty. Despite denials from the Japanese government representative (which was promptly gunned down by the Chinese) proclaiming that the automated defense systems were "malfunctioned", and "hacked", without the United Nations or long distance communications and with the all-time high distrust of Japanese, China, Korea, and America informally declared war on Japan, with the ARCHIMEDES orbital weapons platform developed in secret since 2020, systematically taking down power stations, power grids, and communications relay before the real invasion. It's coup the grace were the destruction of Ocean Turtle offshore facility, which sparks mushroom cloud for the third time in Japanese history.

After confusion due to suddenly losing internet, electricity, and communications, Japan was caught relatively unprepared by a Chinese-Korean ground invasion and a separate group of American test-fire squad, intending to test the capabilities of the "Fat Man" nuclear catapult. Despite employing mass-produced Kirigaya-RECTO robot armies and energy weapons in addition to conventional weaponry, the Japanese forces were ultimately overwhelmed by the combination of Fat Man's nuclear explosion and fallout, the power and electricity limitations (which limits the robot armies movement time, a fact that the largely conventional American and Chinese forces exploit), and with the sheer number of vengeful Chinese and Korean armies mopping up the rest.

Japan suffers a highly humiliating defeat and its status as a country since then, were nonexistent under Chinese control, with many of its national landmarks including the infamous Yasukuni Shrine desecrated and soon destroyed, also the surviving citizens given choice of lifetime servitude to the winners, or annihilation.

The lifetime servitude were chosen because of their skills. Those that were skilled in computer technology and engineering boarded the American vessels and granted asylum in the United States and those that weren't... serving the Chinese as slave labors.

Korea later joins the Chinese as a union in a new Cold War (due to shortages of resources and a beginning of a new technological and arms race) between America and China and since then, the America identify Koreans as Chinese. Russia, however, remains neutral, even sending a delegate that soon invited to one of the American Vault.

2054: Another American-based tech start-up, Vault-Tec, were established. Their first product is a controlled-environment artificial intelligence called ZAX 1.0. Not long after, Project Safehouse initiated. Vault-Tec was commissioned by the US Government in order to create preservation bunkers known as the "Vault" in the event of nuclear war (predicted due to the apparent Chinese military build-up) reaching the American soil. Construction begins late in 2054 and proceeds rapidly due to advances in construction technology. The aforementioned ZAX 1.0 was appointed as the overseer of a trial vault, until it was decided that human overseer is more cost-effective.

Vault-Tec Game Studios, consisted of pardoned (due to proven innocence) Japanese-origin company Nintendo (which one of the large companies pre-Plague to publicly swore-off FullDive technology that involves intrusion to the five senses) staff, started development of videogaming from scratch, as demonstrated by "Red Menace". Robust EMP-proof technologies were made jointly by RobCo and Vault-Tec to withstand potential nuclear attack, especially after nuclear armed conflict are rising with the development of nuclear technologies for both vehicular and small arms.

Little do they know that among them there are those Japanese, which granted asylum in exchange to providing research to US governments, suggests the whole "social experiment" thing to the Project Safehouse Vaults, highly possibly inspired by "The Underworld".

2059: Ceasefire between the Chinese and the US has been ended, as the Chinese encroachment to the North American territory of Anchorage, Alaska, provokes the American army and government, thus a US-based forward operating base was established at Anchorage to protect American interests. In the process, Canada was annexed by the US as the national treasury of Alaska hit rock bottom due to the resource scarcity.

Ceasefire ending was believed to be due to how the Chinese population rise is inevitable and how Chinese is running out of resource. Encroachment to another Asian countries was also confirmed, prompting US to safeguard Philippines.

2060: As the world's crude oil dangerously declining, R&D looks for alternative. Aside from organic fuel, they're succeeding in planting fusion battery to Robco desktop and the portable computer PIP-BOY, fusion powered cars were started to be reproduced. Soon they replace all petrol-based cars. Fusion powered motorcycles, airplanes, and robots follow suit.  
After the Europeans left the Middle East by way of long walk and donated camels and horses due to the lack of fuel and Tel Aviv was a smoldering nuclear crater, the Middle East survivors transformed itself into a religious community based on the majority's. traditional religion guideline. Afterwards, nothing was heard from them anymore outside of their territory except for a nation-scale exodus of certain ethnic groups toward the Middle East. The Middle East has since cut all communications inward and outward.  
From what is heard by the Europeans after the end of the war, the Middle Eastern were described as "graceful" and "generous".

2067: The ALICE humanoid robot that was shown in public as the first Japanese attempt to produce advanced artificial intelligence and assumed to be the template for the top-of-the-line model Kirigaya-RECTO domestic robot servants, were mindwiped, stripped of its synthetic human mimicry parts, and remade as the template for RobCo's mass-produced Assaultron series of nuclear-powered humanoid bipedal combat robots, owing to the warrior spirit that ALICE herself possesses in the simulation. Due to the costly implementation and high risks of volatile nuclear core, only relatively few models saw service, with high concentration in Appalachia and Massachusetts, and the highly-protected, quadripedal Sentry Bot model saw more use nationwide.

Another spoils of war, the MHCP-001 software, after being seized from Japan back in 2053, then isolated and taken offline by Agent [REDACTED], has been successfully mindwiped and reprogrammed by Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) as the Predictive Analytic Machine (PAM). The MHCP was known to be one of the first "unintentionally advanced" AI developed during the SAO incident. As PAM, it was installed into an Assaultron body.

The previous owners of both the ALICE and MHCP-001 were Kirigaya Kazuto and Asuna Yuuki, the founders and respectively, the president and vice-president of Kirigaya-RECTO Industries, a merger between the self-established Kirigaya Electronics Intelligence and RECTO Industries which was Asuna's family legacy. Both were forcibly taken into US custody during the invasion of Japan because of their knowledge and the remaining details are classified.

2077: After an 18-years stalemate in the US-China war, Alaska was successfully free of Chinese invasions as the might of American Power Armor crush all opposition, but later in the same year, the world's deadliest nuclear exchange occurs between America and China, changing the face of the world forever...  
Those select Americans who were lucky found themselves in the comfort of the Vault, but part of them are unprepared with the hidden intentions Vault-Tec has planned with many of the Vault's denizens...

Meanwhile, for the last 53 years, Boston Dynamics relocated to Commonwealth Institute of Technology, and by the time the nuclear launched, safely sheltered beneath the CIT, itself wasn't touched by nuclear explosion.

In other place, Roger Maxson, US Army Officer, the next of kin of Peter Maxson, was overseeing one of the national confidential facilities. However, after discovering an immoral genetic experiments, Maxson went AWOL and formed The Brotherhood of Steel.  
Thus begin the two-centuries long civil war between the Brotherhood of Steel (the followers of Roger Maxson who reject immoral science and seek to safeguard any technology that deemed dangerous) against the Enclave (the remnants of US government and integrated Japanese scientists that seek Machiavellian ways to rebuild America, including indulging with immoral science).

2110: Boston Dynamics, along with the surviving CIT staff, reformed as the Institute. Unbeknownst to everyone else outside the Institute, the digitalized mind of Seijiro Kikuoka, preserved in secret during one of Boston Dynamics' clandestine operations, was instrumental in the development of the Synth using the thought-to-be forgotten Fluctlight technique. Kikuoka was then appointed as the Father of Institute.

2227: Discovering Vault 111 in the national database, it was found that a subject with highly adaptable DNA for genetic cloning is there. Kikuoka then hired a mercenary called Conrad Kellogg to obtain the subject. However to maintain cover, the other vault denizens (including one of the subject parent who feebly fought off Kellogg) were summarily executed, the surviving parent was kept as a "Backup Subject", and Kellogg was told to keep the subject for around 10 years.

2237-2286: The subject was not only used as a template for next-generation Synths that are indistinguishable by humans, but also indoctrinated and prepared as the new "Father" for the Institute as Kikuoka, due to an unfixable "bit-rot" due to aging, requests the Subject to personally purge Kikuoka. The Subject was then appointed as the new Father.

2277: The Lone Wanderer, also known as "The Hero of The Capital Wasteland" by the Brotherhood of Steel and Capital Wasteland's inhabitants, discovered two Full-dive based devices, possibly illicitly and confidentially obtained by the US government during the 2052 campaign. One was discovered as a (lethal) US Army training program for the Anchorage Campaign, with the victor being promised access to sealed armory, the other was subject to Vault 112 experiment involving virtual worlds without pain absorber. It is said that those discoveries are instrumental in destroying the core of the Enclave. Thus, Enclave was no more.

2280: Another minor discovery of Full-dive based device was found at Nellis AFB, Mojave Wasteland, as a group of survivalists and ex-Vault Dwellers called the "Boomers" use those to simulate the workings of a wartime bomber aircraft, which later successfully flown over a large battle at Hoover Dam, dropping explosive-based munitions at the hot zones.

2287: Backup subject of Vault 111 unfrozen due to emergency failsafe procedure, realizing that everybody including the spouse were dead, the backup subject sets off to find his/her son, unbeknownst to him/her that 60 years have passed after the abduction and 200 years have passed since the freezing...

Meanwhile, it was discovered that Dr. Amari reprogrammed several Full-dive based devices, although it only used to tap into human memory...

Footnotes:

[1]: Invented by Akihiko Kayaba and given by a group of young techies at Dicey Cafe, The Seed is an open-source FullDive VRMMORPG SDK, capable of easily creating a template for any FullDive VRMMORPG. It was confirmed during the 2027 Asian Tech Conference that Chinese and Korean users are geo-blocked from accessing large features of SDK due to political reasons. Geo-blocking itself was made illegal in 2020 under Electronic Frontier Commission after European Union objected to the very idea of geo-blocking itself.  
[2]: A technique invented by Akihiko Kayaba that allow a computerized virtual interface to connect to all five senses of human wearer. The first iteration, Nervegear, is intentionally made lethal, after then the Amusphere, the second iteration, features "Pain Absorber" that negate or reduce simulated pain. The third iteration used as Soul Translator lack Pain Absorber, and any Amusphere connected to the third iteration will disable the aforementioned Pain Absorber, thus making every instance of pain realistic.  
[3]: A humanoid robotic servant based on the prototype "Ichiemom" and "Niemom" models. It uses Fluctlights from the Underworld as it's main processing system and remotely granted binary rewards as it completes the tasks assigned by the employer. However, come 2052, and their models situated outside Japan started becoming rogue. Even then, before it was rogue, they only received niche overseas buyers despite several export attempts, and those "tin-mens" attracted scornful reactions from populace, with the most buyers were Chinese sweatshop operators designed to manufacture harmful and toxic materials or to provide demonstration or assisting role to human-operated sweatshop assembly line. 


End file.
